Pint Of Ale

I met Richard last night for a long-overdue couple of pints. We started in The Owl, the pub Matt an I were in on Tuesday night. It was busier than Tuesday but we found a seat in the back room and nursed our Sundowners. It’s really good to see a pub turning itself around and the choice of ales is excellent, although I think our pints tonight suffered by being the last two from the barrel. There’s one thing odd about The Owl and that’s the position of the seats in the bar. They’re arranged as a bench along the wall that faces the bar. Richard and I walked in to order our drinks and felt the eyes of all the regulars drilling into our backs. This was probably imagined of course!

We took a walk over the road to The Barge, a canal-side pub I’ve not been to in at least seven years. Richard’s girlfriend’s neighbour was having a party in there last night so it made the walk through the tiny room to the bar a bit of an assault course through dancing bodies. There was a choice of three ales once at the bar: Tetley’s, a local beer from Keighley and the even more local Rodley Barge Bitter, of which we ordered two pints. It didn’t have the most pleasant of aromas but I thought it grew on me as the pint went down. The Barge seems like a decent pub and seems from the pump clips above the bar to have regular guest ales. I’ll visit again one night soon when there’ll be fewer dancers getting in the way!

Two not-so-good pints down and we couldn’t resist a visit to our old favourite, The Railway. There were quite a few people in and this was a younger crowd to what we’re used to seeing. There was only Black Sheep available, the Deuchars being off, but it tasted top-notch and was very welcome. The atmosphere in there was jovial and this still must be my favourite pub, despite the scaffolding that’s encasing the building at the moment and the big bright new curtains at the windows!